Two Poems

Salonee Verma
 

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THINGS YOUR MOTHER SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME

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1. When feeding the birds, don't feel shame. You’re worth as much as the soil in a forest fire.
2. Maybe there was an old family story about the devil's tongue climbing down your wrists.
3. The whales love to scream, if you’re listening. Your ears aren’t the right shape to listen to ‘em.
4. There are mynah birds nesting in your family tree. Stop trying to shoot them off the branches.
5. Your fake leather wallet would be stunning covered in mud. 
6. Stop trying to make sense of anecdotes. The faster you dance, the easier you’ll grin.
7. Drink the rain from the palms of your hands in the garden. It’s a steroid for putting down roots.
8. Make the love of your life into a cactus. Then, you’ll never be disappointed in your dreams.
9. Speaking of dreaming, don’t. Your sister died ‘cause of a dream. Stop following her.
10. What I’m trying to say is that you’ll sprout leaves some day & never know.
11. What I’m trying to say is that I love you like a crab loves the sand.
12. What I’m trying to say is that I should’ve loved you like you were a mirror, not a replacement.

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Lying as an Indulgence

 

                    Absolution is your mother’s lemons rotting
                    in the fruit bowl. Those damn lemons are singing

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                    swan songs on the sidewalk while you’re out
                    dancing. It’s raining hard & you are barely
                                 seventeen. 

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                    Only one of those things is true. How gorgeous
                    it would be to guess right every time. It’s

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                    not actually raining, but it feels like it should be.
                    The clouds are heavy still but it hasn’t

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                    rained for a month. Your mother got the lemons
                    in the last thunderstorm. You were dancing on
                                 the driveway 

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                    when she came home. Two of those things are true.
                    You’re getting better at mystifying without clouding.

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                    Someday you’ll get three out of three without sodium
                    thiopental. Maybe then you’ll finally be forgiven.